Paolo e Francesca

This is an interesting effort to make something on film of Dante's brief love story of Francesca da Rimini and her lover and brother-in-law, Paolo Malatesta. It is well made, carefully sticking to costumes and milieus of the high middle ages, and both are credible enough as lovers, although they certainly aren't any Romeo and Juliet. Insead of Friar Laurence you have here an infernal astrologer manipulating Mr Malatesta and his court for the sake of his own power, but nothing is shown of what might have come of all that. Mr Gianciotto Malatesta is also left at a loss when he sees what he has done and learns the truth, that his wife and his brother had actually planned to elope by suicide, the poison provided by the monstrous hypocrite. It is not one of Matarazzo's best films but interesting as an effort to make the famous love story, hardly more than an anecdote originally, on film. Cicognini's Pucciniesque music adds to the romantic operatic performance, but it certinly could have been made better, for example in colour and by a more empathetic director.